About this title: In this groundbreaking study, Mann shows how a new generation of anthropologists and archaeologists, using new research techniques, have come to the persuasive conclusion that more people lived in the Americas in 1491 than in Europe.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400040063ISBN:140004006X
Description: Good. Standard used condition. May have light reading or storage wear. All orders processed within 2 business days. Ships from Foxboro MA. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781400032051ISBN:1400032059
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Pages are tight with owner name in front and back. A few highlighter markings plus several pages clipped, no stains or tears. Edges lightly soiled. Cover has moderate wear, spine is smooth. Solid book, 554 pages,... Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 554 p. Contains: Illustrations. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2005-08-09
ISBN-13:9781400040063ISBN:140004006X
Description: Good. Book is in good condition with minor blemishes on the dust cover. Pages are clean. Ships next business day. Your purchase helps support Angel Cat and Dog Rescue. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780739464410ISBN:0739464418
Description: Very Good with no dust jacket; Light cover wear with small scratch and small puncture on front cover. Binding tight, text clean. Due to size and/or weight of the book I can only ship it domestic mail. A Little Store that's BIG on Service. 0739464418; 14658. 509 pages; D-2-14-09. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400040063ISBN:140004006X
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Nice clean book inside and out, with just trivial shelfwear. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 480 p. Contains: Illustrations. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2006-10-10
ISBN-13:9781400032051ISBN:1400032059
Description: New. FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION: SECOND PRINTING: Trade Paperback: Published by Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group. Wraps in Excellent condition. Spine smooth; binding tight. Pages crisp, clean and unmarked. Professionally and securely packaged, with Tracking Number. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2005-08-09
ISBN-13:9781400040063ISBN:140004006X
Description: New. Book is Brand New, Gift condition. Free tracking # included! International buyers are welcome. We ship every business day. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9781400040063ISBN:140004006X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 480 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Gently read by me, book is in great condition, binding is tight, pages are clean. The front cover has a few creases from traveling around in my knitting bag. Amazing book that describes the rich civilization of the New World, and the effects of European colonization. read more
"Well written, well researched and deviates from previous opinions as to the dates of the peopling of the Americas. Much earlier than the generally accepted date. The main point, well taken, is that far more people lived on the American Continents than had been previously thought. In fact, the Americas had a far larger population than Europe including the Mediterranean area. Really makes sense."
"The author brings a journalistic perspective to this rather extensive review of the anthropological and archeological efforts that have been made over the last fifty years to understand the native cultures of both North and South America that more or less predated the arrival of Columbus in 1492. The book is essentially one long rebuke of the commonly held notion that the Americas were scarcely populated before Columbus and that its inhabitants were invariably uncultured, savage, and nomadic hunter-gatherers living in small tribes operating in pristine wildernesses.
There are any number of key themes that interest the author. The most prominent area for correction, in direct contrast with the conviction of constant wandering, is the tendency of Indian cultures to create centralized, stable living arrangements, dating back several thousand years. Elaborate and sophisticated cities, with both practical and symbolic (religious) buildings, many remaining viable for hundreds of years, have been uncovered all across the Americas with Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, and the Southwestern U.S. being key sites. This urbanization was made possible due to a shift to agriculture for survival with maize, a form of corn, being the principal dietary staple. The surplus production of food supported a cultural and political elite, who then had the time to produce cultural products, direct working forces, and improve the technical infrastructure, such as irrigation systems.
But all has not been straightforward in this broad corrective effort of our ancient history. Because the evidence used to reconstruct the past is so fragmentary and minimal and subject to vastly different interpretations, the conflicts among researchers and academics is a considerable part of the author's story. For example, there are disagreements among "low-count" and "high-count" theorists concerning the total population of the Americas at any one time, with higher projections being around fifty million. The debate about who were the first arrivals in the Americas, and when and how they came, still rages. Such issues as whether the soil along the Amazon River could have supported large towns still result in bitter denunciations in academic journals.
The author makes clear that the native societies that the Europeans found in both North and South America were mere shells of what once existed. Little did they know that early visitors introduced diseases, like hepatitis and small pox, which virtually wiped out entire populations, forcing Indians to fall back to more primitive modes of living devoid of former cultural complexity. The genetic susceptibility of Indians to these diseases, beyond the lack of immunity gained due to exposure, is discussed. Also, the Europeans did not appreciate the efforts Indians made to shape their environments by such measures as controlled burning of woodlands or controlling the density of wildlife. It is interesting that New Englanders, according to the author, were leery of the democratic and communal tendencies that they found among the Indians, which they saw as undermining their hierarchical social order.
The book is beyond a doubt highly informative, but its lack of organization and even editing gets in the way. The journalistic tendency to overload with facts is evident. It is hardly necessary to give the name of every researcher encountered by the author; that's why there are notes. Worse, is the author's tendency to randomly jump among time frames and locales. This is where a detailed time line of Indian societies would have been very helpful.
There's no doubt that the author leaves himself open to a view that he romanticizes Indian culture. Perhaps the early Indian cultures compare favorably to the Mesopotamians, but one wonders whether such equivalency can be found in regard to the Greeks and Romans. It's difficult for the reader to answer that question, because, while the author roams widely geographically, there is a noticeable lack of detail about any of the Indian cultures, including differentiating among them. Certainly, our understanding of any of them is miniscule compared to what we know about the Greeks. He doesn't ignore the violence on both sides of the Atlantic. Some Indian cultures made human sacrifice a part of religious rituals, while Europeans engaged in massive executions to force religious conformity - pretty squeamish stuff, regardless.
The author emphasizes the destructive nature of the European intrusion on Indian societies. That seems exaggerated, because countless sophisticated Indian societies disappeared well before Europeans arrived. Environmental developments and warfare are either given or suggested as reasons for those societies disintegration.
Basically, the interesting aspects of the book outweigh its shortcomings. However, it is clear that this book merely scratches the surface of our early Indian peoples."
"Glyptodonts, caliche and zoonotic. Sounds like a law firm hell doesn't it? Alas, it is only some of the terms Charles Mann digs up discussing pre-Columbian agriculture. (Digs up, get it? Never mind.)
I've done my share of wandering the Yucatan. Unlike the civilizations of Rome or Egypt, you just know there is a much more profound mystery surrounding the Maya, Inca and even the North American cultures pre-invasion. Vast cities, astounding architecture, math, astrology and human sacrifice-what more could you ask for? Unfortunately what we know is filtered through the eyes and attitude of European xenophobia.
This treatise is designed to change the idea that the Americas before Columbus was a vast wilderness populated by inconsequential natives easily ignored. In fact, when 'the Italian from Spain' did show up, the population was equal if not greater than that of Europe-perhaps in the tens of millions.
The scope is vast, the research detailed-combining recent sociological statistics with legend and scholarship from an array of sources. This is the first 'chunk' of information I have read on the civilizations of the Mississippi flood plain and how the massive earth mounds correlate, in a way, to the Anasazi. Very interesting. The author also goes into detail on the cat-fights emanating from other experts in the field-a little like Jared Diamonds "Collapse."
Mann takes into account the immense sweep of geological time and the empires that have come and gone in only a span of twenty millennia and the seemingly abrupt changes that have occurred to so many. There are fascinating tales of places like the great Inca city of Tenochtitlan-in its heyday, it was larger than Paris-and Tawantinsuyu on the shore of Lake Titicaca in the high Andes, a marvel of architecture and economic prosperity.
His prose is concise but sometimes overly technical. As he connects the dots of cultural myths between the Colorado Plateau (particularly the Hopi) and those of Central Peru some amazing revelations emerge.
This makes an excellent companion to "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" with a lot less gloom and doom. Skip about seventy-five pages in the middle. You'll know when."
"Let me start by noting that Mann is a journalist, rather than a historian or cultural anthropologist. This results in a work that is extremely accessible to the non specialist reader and lacking in jargon.
So much of our notions of what North America was like before Europeans arrived are the result of our own impact on the continent. The notion of an empty continent populated by either "noble savages" or aborigines comes from the fact that the population was decimated by western diseases within a 100 years of our arrival.
Mann shows that Native American cultures were highly civilized and complex, with enormous centers of population and highly organized agricultural and political societies. He shows that when Europeans came to North America, they were not seeing a "state of nature" but rather a continent that had already been significantly changed by the agricultural practices of its inhabitants.
We tend to think of small villages of teepees or cave dwellings. But Mann shows that the populations of the America were equivalent to those of Europe in 1500, and that there were large, organized communiteis throughout the continent. Some of the largest of these, such as the cities of the mound people of the plains, or Tenochtitlan in South America, were enormous in scale, and highly civilized.
There was so much here before we arrived, and its important to remember this."
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
rating
